Having celebrated its 12th birthday February 4th, here are some interesting tidbits of information from the popular Sims series:

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– More than 150 million copies sold worldwide, making The Sims series one of the most popular video game franchises of all time.
– 53 million hours of The Sims 3 games are played per month; enough time to walk around the world at least 1,400 times.
– With more than $2.5 billion in revenue, The Sims falls in the same class of box office sales as blockbuster films, Avatar and Titanic.
– The Sims official YouTube channel has more than 70 million global video views, nearly triple the number of U.S. Netflix subscribers.
– 300 musical artists have recorded tracks in “Simlish”.
– The Sims 3 game continues to attract nearly 2,000 new players every day.
– Across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, The Sims has more than 22 million global fans.

See how fans from all over the world interact on The Sims’ Facebook page.

A&E reporter John Wenzel has covered a variety of topics for The Denver Post over the years, including video games, comedy, music and the fine arts. He's been playing and loving video games since his dad brought home a sweet ColecoVision in 1983. Catch him on PSN as beardsandgum.

Hugh got his start writing for the Cheyenne and Woodmen Edition newspapers in Colorado Springs. In 2011 he moved to Denver where he has written for Denver Urban Spectrum and Colorado Community Media’s Wheat Ridge Transcript. Hugh joined The Denver Post in 2014 as an editorial assistant.